Use This Trick To Maximize Your Paid Time Off

It’s mid-January, the month which features Blue Monday, aka the most depressing day of the year. While the concept of Blue Monday itself was a marketing trick dreamed up in 2005 by UK travel firm Sky Travel, as a way of getting people to book vacations in a fallow period of the year, the idea has now been adopted wholesale across the workforce, in a case of life imitating art.

Even though there’s little to no scientific basis that the third Monday of January is the year’s most gloomy day, workers everywhere empathize.

That may be thanks to Sky Travel’s “formula” which includes factors such as weather conditions, debt level, the time since Christmas, time since new year’s resolutions have been broken, low motivation levels, and the feeling of a need to take action.

People everywhere feel the blues in January––think post-holiday debt, low winter light, plunging temperatures, and an empty bank account. Little wonder then that January is also the most popular time of year to start looking for a new job.

What’s my motivation?

Money is almost always the biggest motivator for a job switch but post-pandemic, Americans want a better work-life balance and more job flexibility too.

That includes vacation days. With one in five private-sector workers in the U.S. receiving no PTO, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there is actually no federal obligation to give any paid vacation days at all.

However, most employers do offer paid vacation time, on average around ten days PTO annually, and according to the BLS, if your tenure at your company is five years, you’ll likely get 15 paid days of vacation.

It’s still not a lot, especially when you compare it to other countries. Depending on the Canadian province you live in, you can get between 10 and 20 days of PTO, as well as seven to 13 paid public holidays.

In the UK, employees are entitled to 28 total working days, and in Australia you are entitled to a minimum of four weeks of paid leave every year.

Maximize your PTO

So how can U.S. workers maximize their PTO and make it work hard for them? There’s a simple trick you can use to stretch out your vacation days by taking the majority of them around public holidays.

With May 27th’s Memorial Day the next public holiday, make sure you put in a leave request for May 24th now. That will give you four days off, by only taking one PTO day.

Or if you want more bang for your holiday buck, consider taking a few extra days around Independence Day. If you take off July 1-3rd and also July 5th, you can get a nine-day stretch for just four PTO days.

Make a job move

Recent research from Pew Research Center found that 46% of American workers aren't taking all of their paid time off. Perhaps that can be explained, in part, by the fact that 12% of workers say their managers discourage them from taking vacation days.

As a result, many workers, emboldened by the shift in work thanks to the pandemic, want to move to companies where taking a break is seen as a positive. If that’s you, then the HackerNoon Job Board is a good place to start your search.

There are thousands of open roles across companies with flexible work policies or unlimited leave benefits, or take a shortcut and discover three hot tech jobs below.

AI Engineer, Cohere, San Francisco

As an AI Engineer you will work directly with customers to quickly understand their greatest problems and design and implement solutions using LLMs, applying your problem-solving ability, creativity, and technical skills to close the last-mile gap in enterprise AI adoption. If you have three or more years’ of model training, deployment, and maintenance in a production environment, strong skills in NLP and deep learning and experience scaling products at hyper-growth start-ups, this could be a good fit.

Java Senior, GTT, LLC, Chevy Chase

As a Senior Engineer, you’ll be a key member of the engineering staff working across Business Services Engineering, Data Engineering, Platform Engineering, and Infrastructure Engineering to ensure that GTT provides a frictionless experience to customers and maintains the highest standards of protection and availability. You’ll thrive and succeed in delivering high-quality technology products and services in a hyper-growth environment where priorities shift quickly. Broad and deep technical knowledge, typically ranging from front-end UIs through back-end systems and all points in between, is required.

Lead Software Developer - Python, Azure, SQL, Oracle, United States

Oracle is seeking an experienced Software Developer with excellent skills in Python, Azure and SQL DB to support Business Intelligence. You will work autonomously writing and configuring Python core code for new and upgraded solutions following technical specifications. You will need many years’ of experience with Python, Azure, and SQL DB, the ability to obtain federal security clearance necessary for this role, which requires being a US citizen, and experience working in a security organization.

Accelerate your career in tech today via the HackerNoon Job Board

- By Kirstie McDermott